An intervention promoting understanding of achievement emotions with middle school students

AbstractThis study investigated the efficacy of an evidence-based intervention aimed at enhancing middle school students' understanding of achievement emotions and their regulation. We used the control-value theory of achievement emotions and ability conception from emotional intelligence as a theoretical framework. Participants were 62 students followed longitudinally from seventh to eighth grade, assigned to an experimental or a control condition. Pre- and post-test measures assessed knowledge on achievement emotions, strategies to regulate achievement emotions, native language-related achievement emotions, and grades. The intervention was embedded within the native language domain and included ten units. We focused on a range of ten positive and negative, activating and deactivating emotions, and associated emotion regulation strategies. Compared to the control group, students in the experimental group improved knowledge of emotional lexicon and emotion strategies; they decreased some negative native language-related emotions; and only boys increased native language-related grades. The findings supported the efficacy of the training and were discussed referring to relevant theoretical approaches

Eighteen Months of COVID-19 Pandemic Through the Lenses of Self or Others: A Meta-Analysis on Children and Adolescents’ Mental Health

Background The COVID-19 pandemic can have a serious impact on children and adolescents’ mental health. We focused on studies exploring its traumatic effects on young people in the first 18 months after that the pandemic was declared, distinguishing them also according to the type of informants (self-report and other-report instruments). Objective We applied a meta-analytic approach to examine the prevalence of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and psychological distress among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, considering the moderating role of kind of disorder and/or symptom, type of instrument, and continent. Method We used PsycINFO, PubMed, and Scopus databases to identify articles on the COVID-19 pandemic, applying the following filters: participants until 20 years of age, peer-review, English as publication language. Inclusion required investigating the occurrence of disorders and/or symptoms during the first 18 months of the pandemic. The search identified 26 publications. Results The meta-analysis revealed that the pooled prevalence of psychological disorders and/or symptoms for children and adolescents, who were not affected by mental health disturbances before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, was .20, 95% CI [.16, .23]. Moreover, we found a moderating role of type of instrument: occurrence was higher for self-report compared to other-report instruments. Conclusions The study presented an analysis of the psychological consequences for children and adolescents of the exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic, soliciting further research to identify factors underlying resilience. Notwithstanding limitations such as the small number of eligible articles and the fact that we did not examine the role of further characteristics of the studies (such as participants’ age or design), this meta-analysis is a first step for future research documenting the impact of such an unexpected and devastating disaster like the COVID-19 pandemic

Positive Affect Over Time and Emotion Regulation Strategies: Exploring Trajectories With Latent Growth Mixture Model Analysis

The influence of Positive Affect (PA) on people\u2019s well-being and happiness and the related positive consequences on everyday life have been extensively described by positive psychology in the past decades. This study shows an application of Latent Growth Mixture Modeling (LGMM) to explore the existence of different trajectories of variation of PA over time, corresponding to different groups of people, and to observe the effect of emotion regulation strategies on these trajectories. We involved 108 undergraduates in a 1-week daily on-line survey, assessing their PA. We also measured their emotion regulation strategies before the survey. We identified three trajectories of PA over time: a constantly high PA profile, an increasing PA profile, and a decreasing PA profile. Considering emotion regulation strategies as covariates, reappraisal showed an effect on trajectories and class membership, whereas suppression regulation strategy did not

Reading with induced worry: The role of physiological self‐regulation and working memory updating in text comprehension

Background. An interplay of emotional and cognitive aspects underlies academic performance. We focused on the contribution of such interplay to text comprehension. Aims. We investigated the effect of worry on comprehension and the role of two potential moderators of this effect: physiological self-regulation as resting heart rate variability (HRV) and working memory updating. Sample. Eighty-two seventh graders were involved in a quasi-experimental design. Methods. Students read an informational text in one of two reading conditions: to read for themselves to know more (n = 46; low-worry condition) or to gain the highest score in a ranking (n = 36; high-worry condition). Students’ resting HRV was recorded while watching a video of a natural scenario. The executive function of working memory updating was also assessed. After reading, students completed a comprehension task. Results. Findings revealed the moderating role of HRV in the relationship between induced worry and text comprehension. In the high-worry condition, students with higher resting HRV performed better than students who read under the same instructions but had lower HRV. In contrast, in the low-worry condition, students with higher resting HRV showed a lower performance as compared to students with lower HRV. Finally, working memory updating was positively related to text comprehension. Conclusions. Our findings indicate that the cognitive component of anxiety, that is, worry, plays a role in performing a fundamental learning activity like text comprehension. The importance of physiological self-regulation emerges clearly. In a condition of high worry, higher ability to regulate emotions and thoughts acts as a protective factor

Development and evaluation of psychoeducational resources for adult carers to emotionally support young people impacted by wars: A community case study

Wars and armed conflicts have a devastating impact at the economic, social, and individual level. Millions of children and adolescents are forced to bear their disastrous consequences, also in terms of mental health. Their effects are even more complicated when intertwined with those of other disasters such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. To help them face such adverse events, lay adults can be supported by psychoeducational interventions involving simple tools to assist children and adolescents emotionally. Hence, we planned and implemented two public communication campaigns concerning wars to support adult carers such as parents, teachers, educators, psychologists, first responders, and others interested in young people’s wellbeing. We developed psychoeducational materials to help children and adolescents cope with negative emotions related to indirect and direct exposure to wars. This study had the objective to identify the content for two pamphlets, testing their comprehensibility, usability, and utility, and monitoring their dissemination. First, based on classifications of coping strategies and on a previous campaign about COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to include in the psychoeducational materials basic information on news about wars and common reactions to wars, respectively; on emotions that might be experienced; and on coping strategies for dealing with negative emotions. For the first pamphlet, we identified the strategies involving 141 adults. They completed an online survey with openended questions concerning ways to help children and adolescents cope with negative emotions associated with the Russia-Ukraine war. For the second pamphlet, we selected the contents based on Psychological First Aid manuals. Through content analyses, we chose 24 strategies. Second, data gathered with 108 adults who had consulted the psychoeducational materials supported their comprehensibility, usability, and utility. Third, we monitored the visibility of the campaigns after the release of the pamphlets, using Google Analytics™ data from the HEMOT® website through which we disseminated them. To conclude, our findings supported the comprehensibility, the usability, and the utility of the two pamphlets, to be disseminated as psychoeducational materials in the early phase of a disaster

Development and Validation of the Robust - Pandemic Coping Scale (R-PCS)

The psychological consequences of epidemics/pandemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, include an increase in psychopathological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and stress, and negative emotions, such as fear. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how people cope with the pandemic. Coping is a multi-component process, helping to diminish the traumatic impact of stressful events in a variety of ways. We studied how university students coped with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, by developing the Robust - Pandemic Coping Scale (R-PCS), a new scale for measuring coping strategies related to epidemics/pandemics. The scale is based on a classification of coping strategies referred to the needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. To create a robust scale, such that the item values would be independent of the sample used for developing it, we employed Rasch modeling. We used a sample of 2,987 Italian university students who participated in an online survey including the R-PCS and the Power to Live with Disasters Questionnaire (PLDQ), during March 2020. First, we applied a dual approach combining exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which supported the goodness of a 4-factor model (i.e., Despair, Adjustment, Proactivity, and Aversion) for the R-PCS, invariant across gender and age of respondents (younger or as old as 23 years, older than 23 years). We then transformed the raw scores of the R-PCS into interval logit scale scores applying the Rasch model. Second, our findings supported the discriminant validity and the criterion validity of the R-PCS, examining the correlations with the PLDQ. They also confirmed its predictive validity: the R-PCS scores were related to 2-month-later enjoyment and anger, indicating that Adjustment and Proactivity were adaptive while Despair and Aversion were maladaptive. Third, our study revealed gender and age differences: the scores were higher for Despair, Adjustment, and Proactivity for females; for Aversion for males; and for Proactivity for students older than 23 years. The study suffers from limitations related to social desirability, gender imbalance, and self-selection effects in the recruitment

Achievement Emotions and Peer Acceptance Get Together in Game Design at School

This paper presents a game design experience in primary schools, with children creating game design ideas and prototypes. Children were organized in cooperative groups. Game design tasks were organized following gamification principles, with ad-hoc gamified material. Cooperative learning and gamification served to elicit emotions and social inclusion. This paper measures them as follows. It operationalizes social inclusion with peer acceptance in three different social contexts, measured before and after the game design activity. It tracks achievement emotions experienced during game design at school. Then the paper examines the relationships between achievement emotions and peer acceptance. In this manner, it tackles an open problem in the literature concerning the links between emotions and social well-being in a game design experience. Path analyses indicate that, respectively for received choices and mutual friendships, positive emotions played a significant role in improving children's social relations, and negative emotions were associated with a significant deterioration of social relations, but only for the extra-school leisure context. The paper concludes assessing the study limits and results in relation to game design with and for children

Definitions of adoption: Changes with age and knowledge

Nowadays adoption is a widespread phenomenon, with a vast diffusion both in its national and international forms (Fadiga, 2003). However, only a few studies investigated knowledge associated to this concept in children (e.g., Newman, Roberts, & Syr\ue9, 1993). Therefore, this work explores the spontaneous representation of adoption, via the analysis of definitions produced by different age children and adults. We took into account the Social Representation Theory (Moscovici, 1961), according to which a social representation is a socio-cognitive system related to one aspect of the world, shared by a community with the function to guide actions (Gruev-Vintila & Rouquette, 2007). We hypothesized that definitions would have been more plausible and richer at increasing ages. Moreover, we explored the role of knowing adopted persons as a factor fostering complexity of representations; thus, we hypothesized that participants who declared they knew adopted persons would have been characterized by more plausible and richer definitions. The participants were 162 children \u2013 aged 6, 9 and 12 years \u2013 and 40 adults, who gave, respectively, oral and written definitions of the term adoption. Chi square tests and ANOVAs were run. The results suggest that plausibility of definitions was higher as age increased and for participants who knew adoptees. Moreover, definitions were longer as age increased. Finally, complexity of themes \u2013 in terms of reference to aspects pertaining to antecedents and consequences of adoption \u2013 increased with age and was associated to knowledge of adoptees. On the whole, this study indicates that representation of adoption is more complex at increasing ages but also for people who are characterized by direct knowledge of adopted persons. Applied implications can be drawn, considering the relevance of direct contact with adoptees in educational fields